The Good Girl

Bill Mendholson is used to being in control. As a detective, he's trained to keep his suspects, and his emotions, in check. But when a brutal storm makes landfall in Comfort Cove, Massachusetts, he can only watch helplessly as it threatens to destroy his hometownand his heart.

The woman he loves, social worker Mary Anderson, is caught in the storm with several small children. Bill fears he won't be able to get to Mary in time. That he'll never get to tell her how he feelsor discover her secret .

She didn't feel like sitting. And couldn't stand around in heels for hours on end. Which was why she rarely wore them. Or the suit. She didn't spend too many days only in the office. And her more serviceable slacks and jackets and low heels were better suited to the types of house calls she made on a daily basis.

"You did, didn't you? You thought I'd just walk out on you."

Bill had donned one of the tweed sport coats he wore to work with his dress slacks. He'd put on the gray-and brown silk tie she'd bought him the previous Christmas.

He was sitting, knees apart, in the middle of her couch. His hands rested on his knees, as if he had no idea what to do with them. If she hadn't been breaking apart inside, she'd have felt sorry for him.

"I think it would be easier on both of us if you went," she said. It wasn't like they were fighting over anything that could be fixed. She had a history. Bill didn't approve of it.

And she didn't blame him.

"Really, Bill, it's fine. I'm fine." Or she would be.

As soon as she had a chance to pick up her pieces and put them back together.

"That's right." She'd asked Bill to come along a couple of times, but he'd always been too busy at work. The man hadn't taken a vacation in more than two years.

"Was she already down there, when you danced?"

He couldn't look her in the eye. And she felt dirty, in her own home. She wanted him gone.

"No."

"Did she know?"

If she hadn't spent two years loving the man, she'd have shown him the door. She didn't have to put herself through this.

But he'd just told her he loved her. He'd been sincere. And this was Bill. Her knight in shining armor. She didn't love him any less because he didn't want to marry a stripper.

"I'm not sure," she told him honestly, finally sitting, legs together and hands clasped, in the armchair perpendicular to the couch where he sat. The couch her father had spent his last weeks on. "I think she did. I'm pretty certain she knew. But we never discussed it."

His eyes rose quickly, meeting hers briefly, and then he looked away. "She never asked?"

Mom had given her the respect of not bringing that part of her life into their home. Into their relationship.

And maybe that was why she'd been so ready to believe that Bill had done the same.

"My father was dying," she said. "He was on medications that had caused kidney failure. He needed a transplant. He'd been on a donor list and a kidney was supposed to be available soon, but his insurance wouldn't pay for the surgery and dialysis wasn't enough anymore. My aunt had gone through a horrible divorce and was living with us while she tried to get herself out of debt. She worked full-time as a receptionist at a PR firm. Mom had to be home to care for my dad.

I was fresh out of high school. Still flipping burgers for minimum wage until Dad's health improved and I could go to college. The year before, I'd met a girl who came into the restaurant. She'd told me she knew how I could make a hell of a lot more money. I'd told Mom about it at the time and we both shuddered and had an uneasy laugh." Mary spoke to the carpet. And the drapes. Powered by the ocean tumbling along in the distance, she took the high road. Did the decent thing. And gave Bill his due.

"When I heard about the insurance company's refusal to pay for Dad's surgery, I went to The Strip Joint and found the girla woman named Sheila who got a cut for every girl she brought in. But I didn't know that at the time. She put in a word for me and I was onstage the very next night. No time for second thoughts. That first night I made enough money to pay for an initial visit with the transplant surgeon."

"And your parents never asked where the money came from?"

"No. Dad was too sick and drugged, at that point, to know what was going on. Mom told him an insurance payment had come through."

And she'd cried every single time Mary came home with more money. She'd hugged her. Coddled her. Kept her close. And told her, every single day, that she was a good girl.

"You said your dad died ten years ago."

"That's right. About six weeks after The Strip Joint was busted."

"Because he couldn't afford the surgery?" Bill stared her straight in the face. "I'm responsible for your father's death?"

"Of course not. A kidney didn't become available in time."

"But if it had, you couldn't have paid for the surgery without the job."

"That's right."

"But they left your father on the list?"

No, they hadn't.

But she'd given Bill his due. And she'd had enough.

"It's a moot point. He clearly didn't have the strength to make it through the transplant or to tolerate the rejection drugs that would've come after."

And if she'd known that going in, she still would have tried. She still would have danced every night of the week if it meant there was even a minute chance that she could have kept her father alive.

"You loved him." Bill hadn't moved, but his eyes were glistening.

"Yeah. He was a great man. A great dad." She smiled. "I had a blessed childhood."

"Which is why you work so hard to help other children know even some of that same happiness."

Shrugging, Mary stared at her hands. And then at the door. She'd quit analyzing the whys of her life, of her choices, a long time ago. She got up every day and did what she had to do so she could look herself in the mirror.